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Final findings for the Faslane Five
Posted by bex on 16 May 2008.
A Greenpeace volunteer on the boom at Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland
I don’t know if your remember our Trident Tour last year - that five week frenzy of Faslane blockading, crane climbing, arrests, solitary confinement, losing a ship, getting it back again, bearing witness, gigs, press conferences, political events and rallies.
Well, it’s been a long time coming but, over a year after the event, I can give you the final results of the legal wranglings that ensued.
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50 years on, still campaigning for peace
Posted by bex on 2 April 2008.
Thousands joined hands to surround Aldermaston base on Easter Monday
On the Easter weekend of 1958 - a few weeks after the birth of CND - thousands of people braved the icy weather and marched from London to the nuclear weapons factory at Aldermaston in Berkshire to protest the building of nuclear bombs. The march marked the birth of the peace movement in Britain.
Sadly, 50 years on, the peace movement is needed as much as it ever was; last year, our government (which counts many former CND members among its numbers) voted to replace Trident, and to lock the world into at least another 50 years of nuclear bombs. Despite the rhetoric of Brown's recent national security strategy
(he wants "to free the world from
nuclear weapons", apparently), £5 billion is being poured into building new facilities at Aldermaston to design new nuclear bombs - most likely in contravention of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
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Greenpeace response to Brown security speech
19 Mar 2008
Reacting to Gordon Brown's speech today launching the government's new national security strategy, Greenpeace campaigner Louise Edge said:
"It's obviously good news that Brown seems to be adopting a joined up approach to the real security issues facing the UK public.
"But he simply can't square his commitment to freeing the world from nuclear weapons with last year's decision to renew Trident.
"And he's living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks building more nuclear power stations around the world will do anything other than increase the risk of more countries getting hold of the keys to build their own nuclear weapons."
ENDS
Greenpeace press office: 020 7865 8255
Join in - surround the UK's WMD factory on March 24th
Posted by tracy on 29 February 2008.
It seems a sad milestone to celebrate - 50 years of anti-nuclear protest. Not the protesting bit, but that 50 years later insanity still prevails in our governments and there are approximately 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world.
This Easter marks the 50th anniversary of the first legendary march on Aldermaston, the UK nuclear weapons laboratory. It was a four day march from London in snow and rain and one of the biggest protest movements ever to emerge in Britain.
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New Trident too big for subs
Posted by jossc on 4 January 2008.
Reported in Scotland's Sunday Herald just before Christmas (but not seen by me until a few days ago, hence the delay in passing it on) was a tale to gladden the hearts of peaceniks everywhere - namely that the latest upgrade to the US designed Trident D5 nuclear missiles may not actually fit into British submarines.
Clearly falling well within the parameters of the "you couldn't make it up" school of classic cock-ups, the Herald reported that tender documents for future underwater-launched nuclear missiles issued by the US Navy last November specify a missile diameter of up to 120 inches. The diameter of Trident's D5 missile tubes is 87 inches.
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Faslane 365 - the big blockade
Posted by Paula on 2 October 2007.
Faslane 365 is a one year continuous peaceful blockade of the Trident base at Faslane from 1st October 2006, ending with a Big Blockade on 1st October 2007.
So where to start? At the very beginning...a very good place to start. Or the end? Having just sung "So long Farewell" as we processed out of the final Faslane 365 circle, the Sound of Music is still ringing in my ears.
3.30pm: 100 or so people, encircled by the police, in the space in front of North gate, had been given permission to have a closing ceremony. We were invited to join hands and take a minute to look at each other and acknowledge our presence, diversity and strength.
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Videos from our peace campaign
Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction - they indiscriminately incinerate people and contaminate air, soil, and water across national boundaries and across generations. Greenpeace is opposed to the proposed upgrading of the UK's Trident nuclear missile system - it's an unnecessary cold-war white elephant at a time when we should be focusing all our energies combating climate change.
Greenpeace scales Big Ben crane, urges Trident rethink
13 Mar 2007
Greenpeace volunteers have scaled a crane next to Big Ben and hung a huge banner from it declaring 'TONY [heart] WMD'.
The protest comes as MPs prepare to vote tomorrow on whether to renew Britain's nuclear weapons system and commit Britain to nuclear arms for the next 50 years. The four volunteers aim to occupy the crane until the vote takes place. They hope to telephone as many MPs as possible urging them not to support new weapons of mass destruction.
One of the volunteers on the crane, Cat Dorey, said: "Trident is a cold war relic designed to destroy Russian cities. If MPs buckle under pressure from Tony Blair and vote to renew it, the repercussions will be felt around the world. We can't oppose proliferation of WMD if we're building them at home."
She continued: "The government promised a national debate on Trident but this is being rushed through quicker than a shotgun wedding. The real threat is climate change and the billions earmarked for Trident could help make Britain the world's first low carbon economy. We're phoning MPs from the crane and asking them to respect the will of the country and vote against Tony Blair's WMD programme."
A recent poll commissioned by Channel Four found that three quarters of the public oppose government replacing Trident now.
A report from Greenpeace released last week estimated the true cost of building a new generation of nuclear weapons to replace Trident will be at least £76bn and could rise as high as £100 billion. These figures contrast starkly with the £15-20bn figure the government has previously stated will be the cost of Trident replacement. The report details how government has spun the figures by only including the design and building costs of the submarines and not the far higher price of maintaining and developing the nuclear weapons system over its lifetime.
The campaign to oppose new nuclear weapons systems has received support across the political spectrum.
Kofi Annan says of Tony Blair's policy: "They should not imagine that this will be accepted as compatible with the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty."
Former shadow defence secretary Michael Ancram says: "The threat of using nuclear weapons is not only illogical but incredible& the need for genuinely independent alternative and flexible non-nuclear deterrence is if anything greater."
Professor Stephen Hawking says: "To replace Trident would make it more difficult to get arms reduction. It would also be a waste of money because there are no circumstances in which we would use it independently."
Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said in London recently: "Britain cannot expect other countries to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons if it upgrades its trident nuclear weapons system."
Photo and video available
Greenpeace press office 07801 212967 / 0207 865 8255
The Trident tour finishes
Posted by bex on 16 March 2007.
Part of the Trident: we don't buy it tour blog 
Sunrise over The Sunrise
© Greenpeace/Sumner
Blimey. I’m not sure how time has slipped past so fast but, after a five week frenzy of Faslane blockading, crane climbing, arrests, solitary confinement, losing the ship, getting it back again, bearing witness, gigs, press conferences, political events, rallies and general sleep deprivation, the Trident: we don’t buy it tour has just come to an end.
The Arctic Sunrise set sail for Scandinavia a couple of hours ago, cheered on from the quayside by a smattering of exhausted Greenpeace folk and watched by the police boat that inevitably appears every time the ship moves.
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The Trident vote is over but this is just the beginning...
Posted by simon on 15 March 2007.
Part of the Trident: we don't buy it tour blog 
© Greenpeace/Davison
I wake up, my first decent lie-in since Christmas, and realise it's the 15th of March - the ides of March - not a good day for Julius Caesar who was assassinated in the Senate on this date in 44BC. And not a good day for that other megalomaniac with a receding hairline, Tony Blair. His attempts to quell the biggest domestic rebellion in 10 years failed miserably and now his plans to replace Trident have been utterly de-legitimised nationally and internationally.